A Team Takes the Honors This Week

Here at LMS quarters, we couldn’t single out one deserving recipient of this week’s LMS Award, so we decided to give it to a group of people: the UNB Cross-Country Team! This award is not so much based on performance than it is for the resurgence of the squad as a whole. As mentioned before on LMS (here and here), the team was cut by the university this spring and even the existence of the team was in doubt. But, with the arrivals of some very talented Law and Graduate students, the team has re-emerged much stronger and a force on the AUS scene. The women’s and men’s teams both raced this past Saturday on a very tough course on the University of Moncton campus.

The men raced 10 very hard kilometres in the “Atlantic University Schools (AUS) Cross Country Championship.” This team had the potential to finish 2nd overall which would be the school’s best results since a 2nd place finish in 2003. The boys lived up to their potential against a strong field and nabbed the silver medal. The guys were led by outstanding performances by Matt Pieterson (#97) finishing 3rd, Adam Campbell in 8th (#93), and Shawn Miller in 14th (#96). The team was rounded out by Derek Ferguson in 21st and Peter Gaudet in 28th. Full results: here.

The women chose to race as a team in the “Open Atlantic Cross Country Championships”, rather than field a partial team in the AUS Championship because the entire team didn’t to meet the tough qualifying standard. Heather Bray (#797), Jill Seymour (#802), and Gillian Lockhart (#800) were the top three UNB girls who worked together (photos, from Trackie.ca) the whole 5K to top-10 finishes. While Amber Allen, Fonya Irvine, Sally Both, and Kari Pettinger rounded out the UNB roster which finished 2nd overall in the team event. This group is very new to XC, has come a long way this season, and has the potential to contend with the best in AUS in years to come! Great job ladies, thank you for rescuing a women’s team that had been struggling for members the last few seasons. We are very excited to watch you grow as runners over the next 12 months. Full results: here.